


"I love you."

by azirqphale



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 19:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19235689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azirqphale/pseuds/azirqphale
Summary: After repeatedly receiving no answer from Aziraphale, Crowley becomes concerned and decides to pay him a visit at his book shop.





	"I love you."

After the third attempt at calling Aziraphale and receiving no answer, Crowley had begun to grow worried. Aziraphale almost never missed a call from Crowley, because he was always in his bookshop, and did generally nothing other than care for his books and do everything he could to ensure no one bought said books. After the first try, Crowley had thought that maybe he was busy scaring off customers, or that he had stepped out for a meal, and Crowley’s call wasn’t really that urgent, so he decided to wait awhile before trying again. Crowley had waited an hour before calling Aziraphale for the second time, he had figured that by then, Aziraphale would have been back in his bookshop. As it turned out, Aziraphale was apparently not back in his bookshop, as Crowley had received no answer from him. This was quite peculiar, but Crowley decided to wait awhile longer, after all, he didn’t really know what Aziraphale did at all times, perhaps he had a prior engagement that Crowley didn’t know about. Crowley called for the third time an hour after the second, and although he was starting to feel foolish for all the call attempts, due to the reason for the call being a small question that he could probably find the answer to for himself, Crowley felt that checking up on Aziraphale was the right thing to do. He was sure that Aziraphale would pick up this time, there was absolutely no way that Aziraphale would miss this third call, surely he had to have returned by now, but he had seemingly not returned, as the line rang on and on with no answer from Aziraphale’s end, and on Crowley’s end, a growing feeling of fear and concern. 

“Alright, what is going on?” Crowley said out loud to himself, walking in circles around his flat, “I'm being irrational, I mean, he’s probably fine right? I can’t imagine anything would have actually… happened to him.” 

Crowley walked over to his phone and called for the fourth time. He decided that if Aziraphale didn’t pick up this time, he would go over to the bookshop to make sure he was alright. 

The phone rang, but of course, like before, there was no answer from Aziraphale. Crowley knew that this was not normal, he knew that Aziraphale would never miss that many calls, especially from Crowley. He let out a shaky breath, grabbed the keys to his Bentley, and made his way out the door.

 

 

Crowley wasn’t generally the worrying type, but as he sped through the streets of London, he found himself becoming increasingly worried about Aziraphale’s whereabouts and wellbeing. He could not, for the life of him, think of a reason why Aziraphale would not have answered his phone calls, he just wasn’t the type to ignore anyone, or anything. Naturally, Crowley assumed the worst had happened. He imagined that Heaven had found out about what they had done to avoid their executions, and had taken Aziraphale away to be properly dealt with. Even worse, he imagined that Hell had found out the same, and that they had taken Aziraphale as a way to hurt Crowley. He was so concerned that he could barely focus on driving the car, and his hands shook as he grasped the steering wheel tighter and tighter. 

After what had felt like an eternity, Crowley finally arrived at Aziraphale’s bookshop. The tires of the Bentley screeched to a halt in front of it, and Crowley quickly got out and walked to the door. He saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the “Closed” sign had been put up. This was not unusual for Aziraphale, as he had rather odd hours of operation to deter customers from actually shopping in his bookshop. Crowley knocked on the door and said into the letter box;

“Angel? It’s just me.”

Crowley stood at the door and waited to be let in, he thought that surely he had been worried for nothing, and Aziraphale would quickly come to the door and apologize for the missed calls with a perfectly understandable explanation, and he would apologize for making a fuss out of something so small. None of this happened, there was no answer from within the shop, and no sign of anyone coming to the door. Crowley was the only person other than Aziraphale with a key to the bookshop, and he always kept it with him, for a reason that was unknown even to him. He pulled the key out of his jacket pocket and unlocked the door to let himself in. As he entered, he saw that every single window had the blinds drawn, and that there were no lights turned on in the bookshop, except for a very dim light coming from the back corner of the shop. Everything was in its place, and nothing looked at all out of the ordinary, other than the blinds being drawn and the lack of any light, of course. Crowley slowly walked through the shop, being careful not to touch anything. As he approached the back of the store, he softly whispered;

“Aziraphale? Where are you? Are you alright?” 

At first, Crowley received no answer, but after a minute he heard a small voice from the back of the shop;

“I’m back here, Crowley.” 

Crowley followed Aziraphale’s voice to the dimly lit back corner of the shop. He looked around and saw no one, until he looked down, and saw Aziraphale curled up in the corner of the room. He was crying, and it looked like he had been for quite some time. Aziraphale looked up at Crowley and wiped his eyes with his coat, and gave the saddest smile Crowley had ever seen. 

“What happened, Angel? Did someone do something to you?” Said Crowley, sitting down on the floor next to Aziraphale.

“No one did anything to me, my dear. Everything is fine, don’t worry about me.” Said Aziraphale, sounding like he might start crying at any moment, while looking at Crowley sadly.

“Fine? You’re sat in the corner of your shop crying. Your definition of fine seems to be drastically different from mine. What’s wrong?” Crowley said, reaching for Aziraphale’s hand. 

Aziraphale weakly took Crowley’s hand in his, and let out a long sigh. No one had done anything at all to him, nothing had really happened to cause this particular event, he felt that he had no real explanation for how he felt, or why he had been crying. He couldn’t stop thinking about how in choosing Crowley, he had left Heaven behind, and in a way, he had left being an Angel behind. Of course, he didn’t regret his choice, but he found it quite difficult to deal with. He hadn’t wanted Crowley to see him like this, so he had avoided his calls, and closed the shop for the day. He hadn’t expected Crowley to come to the bookshop at all, he had thought that there was no way that he would care that much for him, but he was wrong. 

“To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know. I suppose I’m just a bit sad and overwhelmed, I’ve had a rather difficult week and well, I don’t know, it just all became a little much for me.” 

Now that Crowley thought of it, he realized that he hadn’t seen very much of Aziraphale in the past few days. He hadn’t seen him since a few days after their narrow escapes from death the week before. He felt terrible for not having checked up on Aziraphale until today, because although Aziraphale was fine when he had seen him, things could easily have changed. Crowley knew that even if what they had done had had no real effect on him, it was entirely possible that Aziraphale could have been affected by it, and then by adding a hard week on top of that, Crowley could understand why Aziraphale would feel the way he was feeling. As Crowley thought of a response, Aziraphale silently started to cry again, and tried to quickly look down so that Crowley wouldn’t see, although he wasn’t fast enough in doing this, because Crowley noticed immediately. 

“Oh, Angel, I’m so sorry for not checking up on you sooner, I should have known something might have been wrong.” Said Crowley sadly.

Aziraphale nodded in recognition of this and sunk down onto the floor, still not letting go of Crowley’s hand, and slowly rested his head on Crowley’s lap. Crowley firmly grasped Aziraphale’s hand to reassure him that he was there for him, and with his other hand, softly ran his fingers through Aziraphale’s messy hair, looking down at him with both love and worry on his face. He wondered how he could take this sadness away from Aziraphale, how he could tell him that everything would be alright, and that with time, he would come to terms with no longer fully being on Heaven’s side. He couldn’t find a way to put all of this into words, there was way too much to say and there was no way to know what the proper thing to say really was. Crowley did, however, know that he was going to make sure Aziraphale felt safe, and that he would always be there to protect him, and to be by his side, no matter what. 

“Is there anything I can do? Anything at all.” Asked Crowley 

“Just, stay with me, please.” Said Aziraphale in a quiet voice.

“Of course, Angel, of course. I’ll always be here for you. I’m not going anywhere.” Crowley said softly, in a voice that he hoped was reassuring. 

Aziraphale and Crowley stayed silent for awhile, Crowley slowly running his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, and Aziraphale crying ever so softly into Crowley’s lap. They found comfort in each other, and neither of them would ever leave one another. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked after a long silence.

“Yes?” Replied Crowley 

“I love you.” Said Aziraphale, so quiet that Crowley could barely hear it, but still, loud enough.

This shocked Crowley a little. Not because he didn’t already know, but because it was the first time Aziraphale had ever explicitly said the words “I love you” to Crowley. Crowley and Aziraphale had always known that they loved each other, but had never actually said the words out loud. Crowley looked at Aziraphale, smiled, and said;

“I love you too.”

Aziraphale let out a small sigh of relief and closed his eyes. He did not regret choosing Crowley over Heaven, and he knew that Crowley was the most important thing to him, and that he would always choose Crowley. Crowley also did not regret choosing Aziraphale over Hell, he had been doing it for the last 6000 years, and did not plan on stopping anytime soon. Like Aziraphale, Crowley closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the wall. Although Angels and Demons do not technically need to sleep, they both fell asleep, safe in each others arms, in the dimly lit corner of Aziraphale’s bookshop.


End file.
